A protester throws a Molotov cocktail during an opposition supporters’ protest in downtown Kiev, Ukraine. Violence broke out Sunday at anti-government protests as hundreds of opposition supporters armed with clubs tried to break through a police blockade and storm the Ukrainian parliament. The demonstrations took on a sharper tone after last week’s passage of laws that protesters and human rights groups said were designed to stifle dissent. The laws criminalise libel, establish fresh penalties for unlawful protests and make it easier to strip legislators of their immunity.

Tibetan exiles are detained by Indian policewomen during a protest outside the Chinese embassy in New Delhi. They were demonstrating against human rights abuses of Tibetans by the Chinese government, on the eve of World Human Rights Day

Mothers from Sri Lanka’s Dead and Missing Persons Parents organisation hold photographs of loved ones as they take part in a protest in Jaffna, about 400 km north of Colombo. UK Prime Minister David Cameron is flying to Jaffna, which bore the brunt of the fighting, to meet victims of the civil war which raged for decades.

Participants of an annual convention of women’s advocacy groups chant slogans vowing to empower women, in Seoul, South Korea. President Park Geun-hye spoke at the convention and promised to make the country a better place for women, with more jobs and opportunities, and less gender-based discrimination. One of the slogans was ‘Becoming one Korea, through women’s power.’

Activists from the women’s rights group Femen protest outside the Saudi embassy in Berlinat the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia. A small number of women in Saudi Arabia protested on Saturday against the ban on women driving. The Arab state is the only country in the world that prohibits women from driving a car.

A suspected Syrian soldier is captured by Free Syrian Army fighters during what the FSA says is an offensive against forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, in Qobtan village in Aleppo on Thursday.

A demonstrator wears a T-shirt with a picture of a rouged Vladimir Putin as he takes part in a protest against the new Russian law on homosexuality in Copenhagen, Denmark. The protest march went from Christiansborg Castle to the Russian Embassy in Copenhagen.

Activists participate in a mock force feeding outside the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington on Tuesday to protest the use of force feeding on prisoners held in Guantánamo by the US government. President Barack Obama vowed to close the facility when he first took office in 2009, but four years on the military prison set up in the wake of the September 11 attacks still holds 166 men.

Gay campaigners drive a bus past the Houses of Parliament as the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill gets an unopposed third reading by the Lords in central London on Monday. Gay marriage was set to be legalised in England and Wales after the controversial Bill introducing it cleared the Lords today

An Indian tribal woman of the Banjara community on Tuesday attends a protest outside a public hearing held by the National Commission of Scheduled Castes in Bangalore, India. The commission is responsible for recognising the communities who suffer because of the age-old practice of untouchability and safeguards their interests according to the Indian constitution.

Married couple Michael Knaapen (left) and John Becker kiss on Wednesday after hearing the US Supreme Court ruled that the Defence of Marriage Act (Doma) was unconstitutional. The high court ruled to strike down Doma and determined that California’s proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage was not properly before them, declining to overturn the lower court’s striking down of the law.

A police officer asks gay marriage advocate David Baker for a photo ID as he holds a pro gay marriage sign in front of the US Supreme Court building on Monday in Washington. The high court may rule on Hollingsworth v Perry which challeges California’s Proposition 8, a ban on same sex marriage.

People visit the Luminarium, an inflatable sculpture of British artist Alan Parkinson, before its opening at the grounds of the UN European headquarters in Geneva. Until June 14, diplomats, UN officials, school children and communities will be able to go inside the 1,000 square metre structure, financed by the United Kingdom Mission to the UN, to think more creatively about how to make the work of the Human Rights Council better understood through discussions and art performances.

A young Pakistani Hindu boy shouts slogans as another Pakistani Hindu man breaks down during a protest against alleged human rights violations in Pakistan, outside the UN office in New Delhi, India on Wednesday. A group of Hindus from the Sindh province in Pakistan are living in India after leaving their home country a year ago for fear of being persecuted, according to news reports.